


The Breach

by dotfic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-12-09
Updated: 2009-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-20 13:02:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 907
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/213046
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dotfic/pseuds/dotfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jo's already tired when she gets some bad news. (Set just after 3x16)</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Breach

**Author's Note:**

> a/n: Set at the end of S3. Written to [Prompt #9](http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n246/lennni/my%20icons/009.jpg) on my [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/spn_30snapshots/profile)[**spn_30snapshots**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/spn_30snapshots/) [table](http://dotfic.livejournal.com/242411.html). Thank you to [](http://www.livejournal.com/users/musesfool/profile)[**musesfool**](http://www.livejournal.com/users/musesfool/) for the beta.

  
"You want some ice for that, honey?"

The waitress, straight-backed and lean, with roughened, tanned skin and dark hair, catches Jo rubbing at her shoulder.

Jo lowers her hand, curling it into a fist against the Formica. "Thanks."

The woman sets down the plate of apple pie and goes back behind the counter.

Through the big plate glass window of the diner, sunlight warms the side of Jo's face and falls over the pain in her muscles. The hidebehind dragged her a quarter of a mile before Jo killed it. She knows she looks a sight, her shirt smudged and stained. She's already used the diner's restroom to wash off most of the blood from the small cuts and scratches, but the waitress looks at her when she brings the bag full of ice, as if she's wondering if she needs to call the police.

But the woman doesn't ask any more questions, leaving Jo to herself.

The aches radiate from her shoulder outward, fatigue as much as pain. She eats the pie in about four bites, her system craving the sugar. Jo waits until her legs stop feeling like they'll shake if she stands up, pays the check, and heads outside, the bell over the door rattling in her wake.

She sits on the edge of the walk, staying in the sun with the shadow of her battered Ford touching the edge of her mud-caked boots, and puts the bag of ice to her shoulder.

Jo's tired bone-deep, in ways she never imagined feeling. Certainly not when she left the Roadhouse for the last time. It's a good thing she's keeping a journal because the hunts have started to blur together in her memory, and she can't remember which state she went after the goblins in, and if it was last Tuesday or last Sunday the ghost of a murdered child threw her into a brick wall. _Yeah, suck it up, sweetcheeks._ She wants this, always wanted this, but right now she's thinking she's got eight hundred dollars from hustling pool and maybe she'll hole up in a motel for the next week, watch TV and clean her guns and sleep, oh god, she wants to sleep, maybe call her mom.

Jo puts her head down on her knees, hair falling forward so the sun beats onto the back of her neck.

Her cell goes off and Jo's stomach flip-flops. She snaps her head up and flips the phone open. "Mom?"

"Jo, honey." Her mother's voice sounds scratched and shaken.

She already knows it's something bad. Mom only sounds like that when certain kinds of things happen.

"What is it?"

"Baby, it's Dean."

There's a long silence where all Jo can hear is her own blood rushing in her ears. She sucks in a breath. "His deal?"

"Yes. Bobby called, wanted to make sure we knew."

Jo doesn't want to know and has to know. "How? How did they--"

"Hellhounds. Tore him to pieces. Goddamned, dirty..." Her mother's voice breaks apart, fury behind it, and Jo is sure some of it is _at_ Dean as much as for him. Jo's quiet for too long. "Jo?"

"Yeah." She swallows and takes a deep breath before saying more so her mother won't hear the shake in her voice. "Thanks for telling me. I love you."

"Jo."

She hangs up before her mother loosens the knot on her fear and starts begging Jo to come home. If Jo hears that now, she won't be able to refuse; if she goes home now she may never leave again.

Her eyes burn as she stands up, throws the bag of ice in the trash, and starts walking. She needs to move, to prove that she can, and the thought of getting into the confined space of the truck makes her skin crawl.

Dean isn't hers, was never hers, and isn't hers to mourn, but the held back tears sting hot.

There's a ragged postage stamp of a field out here beyond the shops at the edge of town where people have abandoned things, including a broken wooden chair with faded blue paint clinging to it in patches. She thinks about demons, her father, the things she's seen in the past few months, the grief and fear on people's faces, and what hunters do.

Jo demolishes the chair, kicking at the support struts, the slats, the seat, the wood cracking and snapping under her boots. The pieces go flying into the weeds. When it's done she sinks down, sits with her knees drawn up. It's only when the wind gusts across the field and feels too cold against her cheek that she realizes her face is damp.

She swears and swipes the wet away with the back of her hand.

A few hours later she's spent a few hundred dollars on ammo and bought herself an axe and an iron knife that isn't a replacement for the one she always carries with the initials W.A.H. on it. She finds an Internet cafe and checks the usual blogs and message boards and her email. An hour after that she's in the truck, window rolled down, headed for a town in Iowa where there are four exsanguinated bodies.

She ignores the ache in her shoulder, stops for only a few hours' sleep at a motel, wakes herself with a yell from a nightmare. When the sun rises, she keeps on driving.

~end  



End file.
